Thursday, December 9, 2010

How Dems see the GOP 2012 Field

The first seven states where we've taken a full look at the 2012 race for President have shown some wide differences in how much Democratic voters like the prospective Republican candidates for President. There's been little difference though in the extent to which Democrats are actually willing to vote for any of the Republicans.

On average 16% of Democrats have a favorable opinion of Huckabee. That puts him a little bit ahead of Mitt Romney at 13% and well ahead of Newt Gingrich at 10% and Sarah Palin at 9%. Huckabee is either the most popular or tied as the most popular Republican across party lines in all seven states we've polled except Minnesota, where he finished just a point behind Romney.

You might look at those numbers and say that Huckabee would be clearly the best candidate for Republicans to get the sort of crossover support they need in 2012. But that's actually not the case. In head to heads with Barack Obama in these seven states Huckabee averages earning 9% of the Democratic vote. Romney gets an equivalent 9%, Palin gets 8%, and Gingrich comes in at 7%.

There are a fair number of Democrats who like Huckabee or Romney but not so much that they're actually willing to vote for them. On the other hand there are few who like Gingrich or Palin, but those two do a better job of actually earning the votes of the few Democrats who do like them.

So Democrats might not hate their President as much as Republicans do or Democrats did during the Bush years if Huckabee was to be elected in 2012- but they wouldn't give him a whole lot of support either.

Nope. I do not respect the party with which you identify. Therefore, I am purposefully referring to your party in a derogatory fashion.

What point of the post did I miss? You claimed that a "significant" percentage of Republicans are willing to vote for Obama over Palin. Your post here shows that nearly the same percentage of the Democrat Party is willing to vote for her over Obama. If you characterized the percentage of Republicans willing to vote for Obama over Palin as "significant," why wouldn't you likewise characterize the percentage of Democrat Party voters willing to vote for Palin over Obama as "significant" given that the two percentages at issue are nearly the same?

The point is not the proportion of Republicans Obama is getting--it's the proportion that Palin is NOT getting. She's not only losing Republicans to Obama, but there are often more Republicans undecided when it's Obama vs. Palin than, say, Obama vs. Romney.

Also, this post doesn't compare how much Democratic support is going to the Republicans vs. how much Republican support is going to Obama.